


Paper Tiger

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Missing Scene, Moving, Romance, Season 3 Finale, and so is this fic, i am full of feelings, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20305195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: For a little while adding another person to their house covers it up.El needs a room, needs a closet, needs a seat at the kitchen table, needs a hand to hold through a funeral, needs a shoulder to cry on, needs a family. And while none of them hesitates, not even for a moment, the chaos of giving the Byers brothers an unexpected sister sends them all spinning just enough for him not to notice.Not at first.





	Paper Tiger

For a little while adding another person to their house covers it up. 

El needs a room, needs a closet, needs a seat at the kitchen table, needs a hand to hold through a funeral, needs a shoulder to cry on, needs a family. And while none of them hesitates, not even for a moment, the chaos of giving the Byers brothers an unexpected sister sends them all spinning just enough for him not to notice.

Not at first.

For a week El sleeps with his mother, then another week on the sofa. His mother speaks quietly to him about Will moving into his room and he tries to find a way to tell her he needs that space to himself without explicitly saying he needs it to himself and Nancy. Not that his mother doesn't know, it's just he really doesn't want to have that conversation with her. Not again. Not after she sat him down on the couch and made sure she was eye level with him before launching into a whole speech about how much she respects the young man he's grown into, how much she trusts him, how happy she is that he found _love_.

Special emphasis on the word love. A gentle reminder they share a wall. A wave of embarrassment that will coming rushing right back if Jonathan thinks about it for too long, remembers it too clearly.

Thankfully Will seems to catch what's going on and acquiesces, offers to let El set up a cot in his room and share the space with her until they can figure out a long-term solution.

That's when they start to notice.

He's lying on the sofa one steamy Sunday evening, Nancy sprawled on top of him, trying to stay awake as she watches "21 Jump Street." He's just on the verge of drifting off when she moves, teases him about being boring and starts peppering kisses along his chin and jaw, down to his neck and back up. It's enough to rouse him and arouse him, and he wiggles to get comfortable on the sofa before tipping his chin down to be well and thoroughly kissed. And then just... waits.

After a moment he cracks open one eye to find Nancy still there, still in kissing distance but looking up, looking past him at the room around them.

"What?" he says and hopes he doesn't sound too cranky. Though, maybe he should have sounded crankier. He certainly feels crankier. She could solve all that, if she would just get to kissing him.

"Did you paint the living room?"

It's not what he's expecting and, much to his chagrin, he finds himself thinking about it. _He_ certainly didn't paint the living room. Now that he thinks about it, he vaguely remembers thinking the room felt emptier recently. He had chalked that up to El no longer using it as a bedroom, but he sort of recalls maybe seeing a drop cloth kicked into a corner.

"I don't know," he answers. "I don't think so?"

"The walls look brighter." Nancy sounds thoughtful. He cranes his neck to try to look around, but it's all glowing slightly blue and off color since the television is the only light in the room.

"El's stuff isn't in here anymore," he points out.

"El's stuff wouldn't change the paint color."

She moves to get a better view, her leg slipping between his and all at once he remembers that she was supposed to kiss him at least a full minute ago and that by now he was supposed to have at least one hand up her shirt before dragging her off into his room within the next five minutes, before his mom or Will or El inevitably come home and destroy the privacy,

"Nancy," he intones seriously (he hopes) and slides one hand onto her ass. When she looks down, she looks slightly embarrassed to have gotten off track.

"Oh yeah," she replies and kisses him before he can say anything else.

That's just fine with him, he had much better plans for both of their mouths than talking. And he carries those plans out just beautifully; there is kissing and sucking and licking and nipping, and dark marks left where his shoulder meets his chest, and bite marks on the back of her hand as she tries to keep quiet.

It goes to plan so well, in fact, that he forgets her observation completely, wrapped up as he is in her and the warm summer breeze coming in his open window. Forgets until he sneaks out of his room to get them water in the middle of the night. He feels fizzy with pleasure and love, isn't paying attention to anything other than not knocking into the walls in the dark.

It's not until he's climbing back into bed with her that he realizes he forgot to step over the floorboard that's squeaked ever since he nailed a bear trap into it two years ago. He definitely stepped on it. And it didn't make a sound.

+++

He starts keeping a list. Little improvements here and there – the walls, and new linoleum on the kitchen floor, and what he swears is new siding on the back of the house. Not ever too much too close together, but over a couple of weeks it adds up.

"You look pensive," Nancy says when she comes to visit him at work, tossing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich onto the counter in front of him. Bringing him sandwiches has become their inside joke, funny and sad and terrible and mad all at the same time. He blinks at the wax paper and shrugs.

"Don't I always?"

"More than usual." She leans across the counter and he drops the expected kiss on her lips. "What's wrong?"

"Not wrong but... I think you were right."

"Well, obviously." She flashes a grin. "About what?"

"About the living room being painted."

He can tell she can't quite remember, though eventually realization dawns on her face.

"And so you're worried?"

"It's not just the living room. The hallways and the kitchen, too, and I think mom redid the linoleum."

"So?"

"So? So, she's fixing up the house."

Nancy shakes her head at him. "I'm still not following. That's a bad thing?"

"I don't know,” he sighs, tries to parse his thoughts into words that will make sense. “My mom's said a million times she's not even going to try until me and Will are out of the house."

“She fixed up the house after Will was rescued,” Nancy points out.

“Yeah, but she had to. She painted a Ouija board on the living room wall and we set the hallway on fire. This is more than that.”

Her smile is fond, like she’s remembering. He wonders what it says about them that they fondly remember a night they almost died at the hands of an interdimensional monster.

"So what do you think it means?"

"I think-- I mean, why would you fix up a house if you've got three teenagers in it, right? You wouldn't. Not unless other people were gonna see it. Not unless... you're gonna sell it."

Just saying it makes his stomach churn and the words land between them like a wet, mildewed towel; heavy and foul. He can see Nancy's shoulders tense up as she turns the words over in her head.

"Well," she says slowly, "you do need a fourth bedroom now. El and Will can't live together forever, they'll kill each other or, worse, Will will walk in on her and Mike one day and either kill both of them or himself, I'm not sure which."

That she can succeed in drawing a chuckle out of him in the midst of this churning anxiety is yet another entry on the endlessly long list of reasons he loves her and he lets it drain some of the tension from his own posture, leans on the counter to take her hands in his and smiles at her gratefully.

"Both probably," he admits. "Poor kid. But... I don't know. Last year, with Bob she talked about leaving the state. Now with him and Hopper... I don't know. I don't know what she's planning."

"Has she said anything?"

"No."

"Well, what if you, I don't know," she leans in close, arches an eyebrow, "ask her?"

"That," he lifts her hand to his lips, kisses each of her fingertips and the scar on her palm as he speaks, "would be extremely reasonable and logical, and therefore completely unrealistic."

"Listen," she traps his nose between two of her knuckles, strong enough that he has to obey but light enough that he can still breathe, and moves his gaze back to hers, "Talk to your mom. I'm sure it's not what you're thinking. She wouldn't do that to Will, or to El, or to--"

The words stick in her throat and for a moment that veneer of almost arrogant bravery drops from her eyes and he can see that in just the last few minutes the thought has wormed its way inside her too and she's just as terrified as he is.

Then the veil falls back into place and she's the same reckless, sure, insistent girl he fell in love with while monster hunting in the woods.

"Or to us," she finishes. "She wouldn't. She knows. She knows how we feel, okay? She wouldn't."

"Right," he agrees, because it's impossible not to agree with Nancy when she's like this. Shakes off her grip on his nose and pulls her in for another kiss, a little longer, a little deeper, a little more likely to get him fired if his boss catches him.

Luckily his boss is unloading that afternoon's shipment of new records from a pallet in the back, and so he indulges in one more kiss before the bell over the door chimes and he lets her go.

"I'll see you at six?" she asks, slinging her purse over her shoulder again.

His shoulders feel lighter after she goes, and his lips taste like her flavored Chapstick, but the churning stays in his gut through the rest of his shift.

He'll talk to his mom. Tomorrow.

+++

His mother is standing at the sink, elbow deep in suds, a couple days later and no one else is in there with her and that feels as good a time as any.

He stands beside her, picks up a towel and starts to dry.

“What do you want?” the laugh is evident in her voice.

“Why would I want something?”

“Oh don’t try that with me, I can read you like a book,” she knocks her shoulder into his. “You cook, we clean, you don’t cook, we still clean.”

“I mean, I cook _a lot_—”

“Jonathan,” his mother’s laugh is still one of the most comforting sounds in his life, “what can I help you with tonight, my oldest son?”

“Nothing! I just wanted to give you and extra hand, you’ve been doing a lot lately.” It’s as smooth as an entry as thinks he can manage, mentally pats himself on the back for it.

“Well,” she considers, “we’re a family of four now, so you’re not wrong.”

“Right. And not just with El, around the house too.” He risks a glance out of the corner of his eye and finds she’s already smirking at him.

“Ah,” she drops the sponge in the sink, rinses her hands and takes the towel from him to dry them. “That’s the real question."

“There’s no question—” The words die on his lips when the smirk drops off her face, replaced by something softer and much more sympathetic. So he tries again. “I mean, it makes sense. El needs her own room. This house is too small for three kids. But I’ll be gone in a year, and honestly, I could probably move out a little sooner if we needed–”

“Jonathan.” His mother looks up at him with her big eyes, as soft as he’s ever seen them, a mix of emotions behind them he can’t quite decipher. “It’s not a simple answer.”

He gives up the pretense of helping with the dishes. “Kinda feels like it should be.”

“But it’s not, because this isn’t a simple situation.”

“It’s _unusual, _but, it’s not—I mean, we’re happy.”

But as he says it, he knows it’s not entirely true. El has nightmares, has days when she is very quiet and very sad and nothing any of them try can bring her out of wherever she’s gone, deep in her own mind. Will seems more distant than usual, from him and their mom and especially his friends; there’s a tension between them no one seems to know quite how to address. And he’s caught his mom staring off into space, lost in thought, and there are so many things for her to be lost in thought about he can’t even guess what’s done it this time.

It’s him. _He_ is happy. For once he is the one who feels stable, who feels whole. And it feels so desperately unfair that, now that he’s finally managed a bit of it, it’s in danger of being taken away.

“Mom,” he says softly, and finds he can’t quite meet her eye, “_I’m _happy.”

“I know, Jonathan.” She cups his cheek, gives it a pat like she always used to when he was younger. “Nothing is set in stone, okay? Nothing is set in stone.”

She holds him there until he looks at her, until she gives him a tight smile he immediately echoes. Nods at her, accepts what she’s telling him for now.

They finish the dishes quickly, and she doesn’t try to stop him when he retreats to his room. He pauses in front of Will’s door, thinks about going in to ask his brother what he thinks, but he doesn’t know if he’s noticed and he doesn’t want to scare him, or El, if she’s in there too.

He tries music, tries reading, thinks about calling Nancy and decides against it. Finally gives in and decides to go to bed early. But the dark silence just provides more space for him to think, to worry. He needs something expansive, and distracting. He grabs _Dark Side of the Moon_.

It takes nearly the whole album for him to drift off and when he finally sinks into an uneasy sleep he dreams of ticking clocks and Lear jets that never land.

+++

He perches on the arm of the sofa and tries to follow her as she paces a tight circle around her basement, but, honestly, it's making him kind of dizzy.

"Nancy, can you just--"

"Okay," she stops, turns to him and steeples her fingers in front of her lips. "Clearly we're reading into this too much. There's no way she means-- she can't mean... that."

He sighs. "She didn't say no."

"She didn't say yes."

"She said it 'wasn't set in stone.' That sounds more like a yes than a no."

"But she hasn't gone out of town," Nancy points out. It's not a bad point. "So it has to be local, right?"

"Maybe, but..." He sighs. He hates to say it aloud. "I just have a bad feeling about this."

"You have a bad feeling about everything," she huffs. He raises his eyebrows at her.

"And I'm usually right."

"Not true, we’ve been through this. _I’m _always right." she counters. He grins, shrugs his agreement, but it doesn’t get an echoing grin from her. Instead she resumes her pacing. He resumes looking slightly to the left of her, for his stomachs' sake. "We just need... a plan."

"A plan for what?"

"For figuring out what your mom is up to and stopping her.”

“_Stopping_ her? Nancy, my mom’s not the Mind Flayer.”

She continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “Unless you're just moving to a bigger house, then that's fine."

"Well, as long as you approve--"

"Not that I don't like your house but you definitely need another bedroom--" Her words and her steps pick up speed, turning in tighter circles.

“Nance—”

“Maybe you could steal her planner or something, see if there are any trips out of town coming up—”

“That seems a little extreme—”

“Or _I_ could talk to her?” She’s pacing so quickly her hair is swinging around her ears.

"Nancy!" That finally gets her attention. "Can you stop pacing? It's making me seasick."

"Sorry." She comes to a stop in front of him, one arm wrapped around her stomach, opposite elbow resting on her forearm so she can worry the tip of her thumb with her teeth. "I'm worried."

"Me too."

"I also have a bad feeling."

"I know." He sighs, shakes his head and reaches for. She doesn't move, though, so he drops his hand back to the arm of the sofa.

"So why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"What is there to do?" he wonders.

"What if she's on the fence, hmm? What if she's waiting for, for, I don't know, a sign or something?”

“I told her. She knows I’m happy.”

“Maybe she's not sure what to do and if you just put some pressure on her--"

"I'm not going to do that."

"Why not?!" She crosses her arms, glares at him. "You don’t want to stay?"

"Don’t be ridiculous." He glares right back. " But, I mean, think about it for a minute, right? All the shit that's happened to her in the last few years. Will, and Bob, and now Hopper? I get it. I get why she would want to go."

“And you do, too.” Her voice is flat, her eyes shining with hurt.

He shakes his head. “I hate this stupid town, but I love _you_ and I’d rather stay here and be close to you than be far away, any day. At least, until we can both go far away together. But life’s not fair, Nancy, and we’re only 17 so I’m stuck with what she decides.”

"Oh, here we go again--"

"No." He rises to his full height. "Stop. We're just going to go around in circles until we get into a fight or I say something to my mom I'm going to regret. I don't want to fight with you, or my mom. Can we just drop it?"

"You can't just ignore this."

"I'm not."

"Or avoid it."

"I absolutely can and I'm going to," he reaches for her and this time she lets him take her hands, pull her forward, settle them both on the sofa. "At least for tonight. Weren't we supposed to go on a date?"

"Jonathan."

"Nancy."

It's hard to hold her gaze when she gets like this but he digs in and holds firm. After a moment her face softens.

"Yeah, okay. I'll let it go," she dips her chin, looks up at him through her lashes. "For now."

He can't help but laugh at that, pulls her forward and onto his chest. Her arms wrap around his waist and he buries his nose in her hair.

"You're relentless," he murmurs against her scalp.

"One of us has to be," she says into the crook of his neck. "So are we gonna sit in my basement all night or did you have something in mind?"

"Well," he considers, rubbing wide, gentle circles on her back until she pulls back, looks up at him. "I have a new tape and a joint. I was thinking we could go to the quarry?"

She smiles at him, properly then, leaning in just enough to brush her lips over his. It tugs at something in his chest, warring feelings of effervescence and dread. When he opens his eyes and finds her still inches in front of his face he can only hope he's managed to hide the latter.

"Just no Smiths, okay?"

At the quarry they roll down all his windows and he pops _Lifes Rich Pageant_ into his stereo as they stretch out on the windshield and hood. It is cool and clear out, deeply unusual for Indiana on the edge of August. Michael Stipe's voice weaves a spell as the breeze makes the tendrils of smoke rising from the joint dance in the air around them. They trade kisses and touches and exhales, tips of noses dragging along jaws, fingers skipping up sides over flimsy t-shirts.

Usually on nights like this they'd talk about the future, their wildest dreams and fantasies about the life they want to build together, but tonight they're conspicuously quiet. They keep their comments and jokes focused on the music, and the occasional blast of a horn from another couple parked in their car somewhere else in the woods, an elbow or a knee gone awry. That pulls giggles from them, makes Nancy bury her face in his neck again and draw her fingers up the inseam of his jeans.

The moon is high in the sky and bright, brighter than the sun even, he thinks, when he draws her close, tight to his chest and then on top of him.

"We'll be okay," he tells her, cupping her face with one hand, holding her there. "Whatever happens, Nance, we'll be okay."

"Okay," she repeats, and he wishes she sounded more like she believed him. "Okay."

+++

He gets off work early on a Wednesday and catches her in the act.

Nancy is in an SAT prep class her father insisted she take since she’s not working anymore so he drives home with a new record and little more in the way of a plan beyond _take off shoes, lay in bed, listen to music until Nancy is done_. Will and El are probably out with their friends somewhere and his mom’s at work, so he has the house to himself. He can’t remember the last time he had the house to himself.

But when he gets home his mom’s car is in the driveway, and so is another car, sleeker and shinier, one he’s never seen before, in what’s usually his spot. It may as well be parked on his chest for how he’s suddenly unable to breathe.

“…a great job, Joyce,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice is saying as he pushes open the front door. “Really, it looks almost like it did when I sold it to you and Lonnie.”

His mother and an older blonde woman are standing in archway between the living room and the kitchen, pleased smiles on their faces. The one on his mother’s drops as soon as the door closes behind him.

“What’s going on?” His heart is thudding in his chest and it feels like a rock made of caustic acid has formed in the pit of his stomach. He knows the answer to this, but it won’t be real until someone says it aloud.

“Jonathan,” his mother looks stunned. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“Alex let me leave early, it was dead today. Who’s this?”

His mother turns to the blonde woman. “Carol, can you give us a minute?”

The woman – _Carol_ – nods, and walks into the kitchen. Her low heels click on the freshly waxed floors.

“Jonathan,” his mother says and gestures towards the sofa. He doesn’t move. “Please, can you just sit down?”

“Mom,” his voice cracks as he says it and he wants to hate himself for it but there are too many other feelings warring inside him. He pushes them aside, trying to find hope buried beneath them. “Time for a bigger house?”

“Something like that,” she perches on the arm of the sofa, ankles crossed and hands clasped. She’s nervous, he realizes. 

“In Hawkins, right?”

She looks so sad as she shakes her head no.

“_Mom_.” Tears spring into his eyes against his will and he swallows against the lump in his throat. “Come on, Mom, please. It’s not—_Please_. Please don’t do this.” 

“I need to,” her voice is soft, as gentle and kind as any night she soothed him through his father’s abuse or his loneliness at school. That makes it worse somehow. “We all need to. Will and El, they need to get away from here too. We need a fresh start.”

“_I_ don’t need to. I’m fine. I’m—I’ve got Nancy. I’m almost done with school. Mom, _please_—”

“I know, sweetheart, I know. But you need the fresh start, too. We all do. We can’t live like this anymore.”

_Like what?_ He wants to shout, wants to scream, even though he knows exactly what she means. Knows that once again he is the exception to the rule, only this time he’s the only one truly content to stay. It’s bizarre. It’s ironic. Two years ago, if she had said they were moving he would have packed all the boxes himself and given Hawkins the finger on the way out of town. Now he wants to chain himself to the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign and refuse to budge until she changes her mind.

Swimming in the back of his brain, beyond the confusion and anguish and dread, is Nancy’s face when they said goodbye last night, grinning sleepily up at him and tilted to receive a kiss. He’s only going to see that face again a finite number of times. He’s going to come to a night where he turns to nuzzle into her shoulder next to him in bed and she won’t be there.

His eyes burn. He feels a tear drip down his cheek unbidden, another following when he forces himself to blink.

“When?” He can barely get the word out.

“I’m not exactly sure,” she admits and he feels a little hope surge again. “Soon, I hope.”

“What about school?” He thinks about what Nancy said to him last week, about giving her a little push. He should have listened. “It starts in a couple of weeks; you can’t keep us out of school. I need to graduate on time.”

Especially if he’s graduating somewhere else. His mind is spinning, trying to figure out how to get out of this. Maybe if he really buckles down he can graduate early, move out, come back. Find an apartment, Nancy can move in with him. He can pay rent until she graduates, and then they’ll figure it out from there.

“You can transfer. It’s a good time for Will, and El. They’re just starting high school.”

“And I’m just _finishing_.”

“It’s just one year, Jonathan. You’ll be okay.”

He will not, he’s sure of that.

“It’s not fair,” is all he can get out. “Mom, it’s not fair.”

“I know, sweetheart, but you’ll be okay. I promise you, this is for the best.”

She reaches for him, stands to pull him into a hug, but he backs away. He’s not quite ready for that yet. The hurt in her eyes is plain and guilt joins mix of feelings sitting deep in his chest.

“I need… I need to—” He doesn’t finish his sentence, just turns on his heel and walks right back out the front door. He’s not even really aware of what he’s doing until he’s pulling his keys out of his pocket, shoving his bag back into his car. His mother doesn’t give chase, or call after him, and when he looks up after turning the ignition, he finds she’s just standing in the front doorway, arms crossed and watching him.

It’s all instinct, getting out of the driveway and on the road to Nancy’s house. He’s done it so many times he doesn’t have to think about it, which is good, because he can’t seem to think at all. There are too many thoughts in his head, none of them with enough space to form into something coherent, and his hands shake on the steering wheel as he navigates through the sleepy summer streets.

There _has_ to be a way out of this. A way to get her to stay. Will and El surely won’t go along with it, won’t agree to be torn away from their friends, from the only other form of family they have. The three of them, they can stage a revolt, they can convince her to stay. He’s sure of it.

But that just makes him think of what telling them will be like, and that’s somehow a more horrible thought than leaving at all. He can imagine the looks of horror on their faces, their desperate pleas to stay, the crying, the yelling. He finds he doesn’t want to be there when they find out.

He pulls up to the Wheelers’ curb, is halfway across their front lawn when he remembers Nancy isn’t there and, judging by the extremely empty state of their driveway, neither are her parents. It’s possible Mike is home but he doesn’t want to risk Will being there too and having to tell him what just happened.

Nancy’s window is closed but he thinks it might be unlocked; she likes opening it at night to let the cooler breezes in.

It only takes a minute for him to hop up on the roof and test his theory. The window slides open smoothly and he slips in without a sound. Her bed is neatly made and her door is closed.

He toes off his shoes and leaves them at the foot of the bed before crawling onto the covers and burying his face in a pillow. It smells like her, like her shampoo and her laundry detergent, and another sharp pain rises in him. He must look insane, but he takes another deep breath in through his nose, trying to commit it the scent to memory. Wonders if she’ll break up with him for being a crazy person if he makes her roll around in all his sheets before they leave.

Because they’re going to. They’re going to leave.

He breathes slowly, intentionally, trying to keep himself calm. He doesn’t want to fall apart alone in his girlfriend’s room. He’s just waiting for her to get home. But the tears leak out of him anyway.

He combs through his memories of this room, from that first terrified sleepover to sneaking in to see her two nights ago. Spreading their homework out on the floor and wrestling with socked feet whenever one of them got a flash card answer wrong. Crawling down her body under the covers in the wee hours of the morning. That one time she forgot to set her alarm and her father woke him up with a golf club in hand, yelling about respecting his daughter.

That was when they started staying over at his house, mostly.

There are memories that are funny and memories that are sad, fights they’ve gotten into, the mattress separating them as they yelled, and afternoons spent laying atop the comforter, nose to nose and whispering secrets to each other.

Each one is a piece of jagged ceramic digging into his insides. He’s so lost in them he almost misses the sound of her coming home, yelling through the house to see if anyone is there, her footsteps ascending the stairs.

She’s humming something but he doesn’t hear it until she opens her door and then it’s only for a split second before she catches sight of him and screams, throwing the keys in her hand right at his head.

“Ow!” he yelps when they hit him on the temple, reflexes dulled and too slow to bat them away. 

“Jesus Christ, what are you _doing here_??” Nancy hisses, hand on her chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry,” he offers, sitting up against her pillows.

“Why aren’t you at work?” She reaches behind her to close the door and drops her book bag on her desk chair.

“Got off early.”

“And decided this would be a fun day to scare your girlfriend to death? Jesus, Jonathan, I think I almost had a heart attack—” She stops abruptly, seeing his red nose and swollen eyes for the first time. “What’s wrong?”

He can’t find the words now; they get stuck in his throat. So, he holds her gaze and shrugs with one shoulder.

Watching the dawning horror on her face hurts almost as much as talking to his mom did.

“No,” she says after a moment, approaching his side of the bed. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah,” he manages to whisper.

“Oh no,” she repeats and crawls into his lap. He clutches her close, reveling in the feel of her fingertips digging

“The realtor was at the house when I got home. I don’t think I was supposed to know yet.”

“Are you… staying here?”

He wonders if the hope in his voice crushed his mother like the hope in Nancy’s voice is crushing him. “No.”

“Fuck,” she breathes out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”  
  
“Yeah.” There’s really nothing else to do but agree. Wetness hits his neck; she’s started crying. “There’s no ‘for sale’ sign out front yet but she said it’d be soon. I don’t know where we’re going. She didn’t say. Or, I didn’t give her a chance to.”

“Not too far?”  
  
“I don’t know.”

“It’s not fair,” she whimpers and he clutches her closer.

“It’s not,” he agrees. “It’s not fair at all.”

She cries harder and he lets his tears seep out too, dampening the crown of her head.

It doesn’t last as long as he’s expecting, though he’s quite not sure what he was expecting. For her to fall apart, perhaps, as much as he feels like he’s crumbling from the inside out. But to his surprise she pulls back after only a few moments, tearstained but determined, and takes his face in both her hands.

“Okay,” she says, her voice as serious as when they’re getting ready to face down a monster. “We can do this. We’re gonna do this.”

It makes something inside him do flips. “Okay,” he agrees.

“We’ll call, we’ll write. We can see each other on holidays, and weekends if you’re not too far away. Winter break is like three weeks long, and spring break is a week. We’ll be done with school before we know it.”

“And after that?” He can’t help but doubt. Fucking trust issues.

“We’ll apply to the same colleges, go to wherever we both get in. Or, screw college, we can move to New York or Chicago or, or, _wherever_ and get jobs and figure it out. I mean, do we really need to take English Lit when we know parallel universes are real?”

He laughs at that, a damp and snotty sound, and tilts his forehead to rest against hers.

“We’ve got this,” she whispers against his lips. “We’ve killed monsters. We’ve saved the world. We can do anything.”

“I thought you’d be angry. Or just sad. Since when is Nancy Wheeler such an optimist?”

“What, you don’t like my version of the patented Jonathan Byers Pep Talk? I’m trying my best.”

“Oh, is that what this is?”

“Yes,” Her lips brush against his again, “See, isn’t it annoying?”

He closes the gap between them, kissing her deeply and reveling in the feel of her fingertips sliding into his hair. He thinks he’s going to need to kiss her as often as possible every single day until he has to go, to hold him over in the months he won’t be able to. Shoves that thought rather violently aside as his gut lurches again at the thought of time and distance.

“I love you,” he says against her lips, muffles her reply in kind.

They stay that way, clinging together, planning for every version of the future, until the sun sinks below the horizon and he has to go home.

+++

Will takes it hard. El just seems numb.

His mother sits them down on the living room sofa and explains her decision as gently as possible, but the whole house is still in a daze after. It hurts the second time too, a duller ache in a wound already made, and as Will yells he notices for the first time just how tired his mother looks.

He can feel the anger drain from him as they argue, the guilt come rushing in. He’s not blind, or stupid. The late nights, the seven-day work weeks, the years of loneliness in favor of taking care of her family. Normal single mom stuff and extra, too; storming into the Upside Down to get Will back, losing Bob at the lab, infiltrating a Russian base and sacrificing another friend (maybe something more?) to save this shit little town. No, he can’t blame her for this. But he can’t feel anything but hurt yet, either. 

When it’s over, no one is speaking to each other. His mom gives them space, leaving to run errands, perhaps find a friend she can talk to herself. Left to themselves, Will simmers with anger, with despair, but El goes silent. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t leave her corner of Will’s room. It’s more worrying than Will’s rage.

He calls the Wheelers but Nancy is picking up Mike from somewhere so he leaves a message with Mr. Wheeler and contemplates his bedroom. Thinks about having to pack it all up for the first time ever. He never really thought about what he has in there, didn’t even assume he’d need to pack it all for college. He figured this would be the room he’d be coming back to for the rest of his life.

Perhaps, he thinks, he was a bit naïve.

A tap comes from the doorway and he turns to find El standing there, hunched and tentative.

“Can I come in?” she asks, barely louder than a whisper.

“Sure.” He gestures to the bed, watches her perch on the side of it. Nancy’s side, usually. “You okay?”

“No.” She’s not looking at him, keeps her eyes on her hands instead, her fingers twisting together. “I…”

He waits. She’ll open up if they’re patient enough to give her the chance.

“I miss Hop,” she finally says, voice wavering. He’s next to her in a flash, hand on her shoulder as she buries her face in her hands, trying to control her sobs. “I miss him and I can’t find him and if we leave, he won’t be able to find us either.”

He’s not exactly sure what she means but he’s overheard snatches of conversation between her and Will, his mom and someone on the phone and he knows that even though Hopper was standing right next to the Russian machine when it exploded they had no body to bury, no sign he was ever there. And he knows they’ve all seen too much to trust death without proof.

He doesn’t know what to tell her.

“I know you miss him,” he tries, gives her shoulder a squeeze. “But you have us. We care about you and we’ll keep you safe.”

She sniffles, wipes at her tears and nods, but he doesn’t know if she believes him.

“How far away are we going to go?”

“I don’t know,” he admits with a sigh. “I hope not too far.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah,” another voice comes from his doorway and he looks up to find Will standing there, arms crossed awkwardly over his chest. A pang of guilt catches Jonathan in the ribs; he’s barely talked to his little brother all summer and now it looks like Will doesn’t even trust he’d be welcome to come talk to him. Maybe his mom is right; he can’t remember ever feeling this remote from either of them.

“Mike radioed,” Will offers, still not coming in further. “He wants to know if we want to hang out.”

El presses her lips together, another round of tears spilling silently over. Will answers with a press of his own lips. Jonathan feels the lump rise in his throat just watching them.

“Hey,” he says softly to Will, and holds out his arm. It’s a relief when his brother crosses the room immediately and accepts the half hug.

To his surprise El curves into him too, letting his arm wrap around her shoulders and throwing one of her arms around his waist. He holds his siblings close, letting El’s tears dampen his t-shirt and Will’s heavy breaths warm his neck. And even as his own chest aches for what he’s losing, too, he finds he remembers just how strong the Byers family can be if they stick together. They’ve lived through worse, right?

“Why don’t you tell Mike to come over here tonight,” he suggests, loosening his grip on them. “Lucas and Dustin and Max, too. We can order a pizza and play board games or something, okay?”

“We could watch a movie,” Will offers as he sits up straight again. “Nancy could pick some up.”

Will hasn’t openly invited Nancy to come over in months. Ever since she became a regular fixture at the house his little brother’s seemed more exasperated at his love life than anything else. It’s an olive branch, perhaps, or maybe a page turned. The realization there’s no time to be grossed out by their relationship; a countdown clock is ticking and they have no idea how many days are on it.

Still, he feels compelled to point out, “You always hate when Nancy picks the movies.”

“Yeah, ‘cuz she’s bad at it,” Will responds immediately and it pulls a damp laugh out of El, “but I can make an exception. And I’ll just tell her what to get.”

He rolls his eyes, but his brother gets a snort of laughter out of him too.

“Does that sound good to you, El? Everyone coming over here tonight?” He needs to check. He can feel how raw she is.

“Yes,” she affirms and smiles a little wider. Surprises him by giving him one more tight squeeze around the middle before she leaves the room, Will on her heels.

By the time his mom gets home the house is filled with teenagers and pizzas, and the Party has launched one of the most elaborate games of Risk he’s ever seen in his life. Nancy stays tucked to his side on the sofa, head on his shoulder, helping him choose the music and tease their little brothers. From time to time she drops a kiss on his jaw, or his cheek, or his lips.

It feels deeply bittersweet, like he’s only now figuring out how to appreciate what he’s had all along. He supposes that’s natural, that’s what moving will do to you, but it still hurts. Nancy’s fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, Mike, Lucas and Will arguing over Austral-Asian takeover strategy, Max and El making fun of them, Dustin complaining that the pizza is gone. Their next house won’t have these sounds and smells and feelings. It will be different. He finds, for once, he doesn’t want anything to change.

Then his mom gets home and the look of soft delight on her face at seeing them all together cuts him straight to the core. So when she smiles at him, he doesn’t hesitate to smile back.

+++

He spent most of his life scoffing at teenage clichés but now he finds he wants to live them all, with Nancy.

He takes her to Benny’s diner on a date, insists on sharing a milkshake with two straws. Drives them out to Sattler’s Quarry to watch the sunset from the hood of his car. Takes her two towns over to the drive-in theater for an old horror B-movie double feature. Even insists on going to the bonfire that marks the end of the last summer before senior year.

He sticks to the edge of the crowd, still content not to speak to any of his classmates, but he encourages Nancy to go talk to the girls she used to hang out with before monsters and government agencies and their relationship took over her life. He’d never tell her – she’d probably shoot him if she found out – but he doesn’t want her to end up all alone once he leaves.

She returns to his side with a fresh beer, not exactly cold thanks to the fire, and an odd look on her face.

“What are we doing here?” she asks, settling close to his side, their thighs touching. She takes a sip of her own beer, watching him carefully.

“What do you mean? We’re celebrating the end of summer and the beginning of our final year of high school,” he pops the tab on his can and taps it against hers, “may it rest in peace.”

“Ha ha,” she rolls her eyes at him. “Since when have you ever wanted to go to anything with our classmates?”

“I won’t be seeing them much longer. Maybe I’ll miss them.”

She frowns, looks away, and he feels bad for bringing it up. As if it’s ever far from either of their minds.

“And,” he knocks his shoulder into hers to bring her attention back to him, “you look beautiful in firelight. So that’s a bonus.”

That earns him a smile, which is all he really wanted anyway, and a hefty shove. When he sways back to her side she’s there waiting, eyes hooded and soft, lips even softer. When they part she rests her head on his shoulder.

“You’re staying with me tonight, right?” He drops a kiss in her hair because he can.

“Mmmhmm.”

“Mom’s out of town this weekend. Stay the whole weekend?”

“Okay,” she says automatically, but she sounds distracted. He waits, knowing it will come. “That means…”

“Probably.”

She goes quiet again. “I hate this.”

“I know. I do too.” He takes another draught of his beer, longer, a more focused attempt to forget. “But you can stay over without anyone asking and we can sleep in and make breakfast and watch movies.”

“Since when do you do this?” She almost knocks him in the chin she lifts her head so fast. “Since when do you just pretend terrible things aren’t happening to us instead of trying to face them head on? Who are you?”

It stings. “I’m still me.”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” she pokes his shoulder. “Don’t lie to me. You’re taking me on milkshake dates and to the _school bonfire_, you’re being _really _weird.”

“I just—” he purses his lips. “I’m trying to remember, okay? Not just all the shared trauma, the good stuff too. I need to remember how you smell, and how you taste, and what your voice sounds like and how warm your skin is because I’m going to leave and when you’re far away from me I want, I _need_ to be able to remember. For when the pictures and videos aren’t enough, I need to be able to think about nights like tonight and _remember_ you. You’re all—”

He can’t finish the thought, though, because she grabs his face and drags it to hers. His beer falls to the ground, forgotten. Her lips are hard against his, sad and a little desperate.

Somewhere to the side of them a loud whistle sounds, a few cheers. He’s content to ignore it but she pulls away, and when they separate the same emotions are shimmering in her eyes.

She grabs his hand, pulls him up from the log he’d found to sit on. Pulls him hard, away from the fire, away from their classmates and their shouted comments, into the woods.

“Where are we going?” he asks, following her without protest.

“Where did you park?” is the only reply he gets.

It takes him a moment to get his bearings in the dark but he does and when they get to the battered old Ford she doesn’t hesitate to open the back door and practically shoves him inside, crawls on top of him immediately.

He can’t see her face that well, the tree cover too thick to let the moonlight through, but he keeps his eyes on it just the same, trying to memorize the way her cheeks flush and how sweat makes her face shine. It is ungraceful and a little awkward and his pants don’t get down past his thighs, but the car fills with the smell of her and him and them together and he listens to every breath, every sigh, every moan, committing it to memory, to the part of his brain that is just for her, for the days ahead that will be lonely and the nights that will be bleak.

+++

The house sells the first week of school. He comes home to a jaunty red ‘SOLD’ added to the top of the wooden flag sign he’s come to hate so much.

The lively conversation in the back seat stops dead mid-sentence, and he can hear Will’s breath catch in his throat. A strangled sound escapes Mike as well. Next to him, Nancy reaches over and grabs his hand, holding tight as he puts the car in park.

They just sit there for a long moment until Will speaks. “We knew this was coming.”

His little brother sounds so old; not just because his voice is getting deeper, but because he sounds weary and world-worn. Even when Lonnie bailed on a baseball game or his mom had work late and miss a school event, Will never used to sound this sad.

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Mike points out.

“No,” Jonathan can’t help but agree. “It doesn’t.”

His mom is waiting for them at the kitchen table with El, a stack of Eggo waffles between them. Papers and photos are spread out on the table. El’s nose is red again, and she doesn’t meet Mike’s eye. He can tell by the look on both their faces this isn’t going to be a social evening.

“I’ll call you later,” he murmurs to Nancy, pulling her into the hallway as his mom explains to Mike that they’ve really got a lot of family things to do tonight, he can stay for dinner tomorrow. “Sorry to make you walk.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers. She doesn’t quite meet his eye, looking at his cheek, his chin, past his shoulder instead. Her mouth is tight. When he kisses her he can taste her distraction. When they part she’s still looking past him. “I’ll come back, okay? Leave your window open.”

As they talk, he finds he’s mostly tired. Tired of the air in the house being so heavy, tired of the weariness in his mom’s voice as she argues with Will, tired of Eleven’s pink nose and watery eyes, tired of the weight on his chest. It reminds him of the last weeks of his parents’ marriage, before his dad finally left, when the air in the house was humid with anger and sadness.

It was a relief when he was gone. Jonathan wonders if it will be a relief when they go, too, or if it will just be worse.

It gives him a headache. He feels like he has to be strong and steady, for Will and for El and so his mom isn’t in it alone, doesn’t become a villain to them she doesn’t deserve to be. But he can feel the resentment roiling in the pit of his stomach, building and growing. He tries to push it away, tries to drain it out and replace it with something better, but it’s not working.

He’s turning it over and over in his head, headphones on and Joy Division loud, when the song skips. It startles him, makes him jump, and when he looks up Nancy has one leg through his window an exasperated look on her face.

“A little help?” she asks as he pulls the headphones off. He shifts the pile of records to the side, takes her hand as she climbs the rest of the way in and hops lightly to the ground. “So how did it go?”

He sighs, crossing the room to close the door all the way. “The new house looks nice, I guess. I think Mom wants us to be excited about it, but… I don’t know. I don’t think that’s fair of her, since she knows—”

As he turns back to her a flash blinds him, followed by a mechanical whirring noise. For a second he just blinks, trying to clear the spots from his eyes.

“What the hell?” he says when he can see again. Nancy looks anything but apologetic, holding the Polaroid in one hand and shaking the picture with the other. “You know that doesn’t make them develop faster, right?”

“Shut up,” she rolls her eyes at him. “You have all these pictures of me, but I don’t have any of you. And since I only have until…?”

“October 5th,” he supplies, hands on hips.

“October 5th,” she repeats dutifully, lifting the camera to her eye again, “I’m going to take as many as I can, whether you like it or not.”

He doesn’t drop his exasperated expression, nor his hands, nor does he straighten the cock in his hip, but at least he’s prepared for the flash this time.

“Both of those are going to be terrible.”

“I did not ask for your artistic guidance,” she advances another step, letting the second photo drop to the ground. “Now, smile.”

“No,” he replies, but he can feel the grin curve the corner of his lips anyway. When she lowers the camera this time he reaches out, snaps the top of the Polaroid shut and pulls her into his arms.

It would be more comfortable without a big hunk of plastic between him, but her grip is tight and just the feeling of her in his arms is a comfort. He sighs into her hair, rocking them slightly on their feet.

“October is soon,” she says into his shoulder.

“Too soon.”

“Five weeks?”

“Something like that.”

“Well,” she steps back from him, gives him a long, considering look up and down. “We shouldn’t waste any time then.”

He can’t help but laugh at that and she giggles too, breaking the tension in the room. He takes a deep breath and returns to his music.

“What do you want to listen to?” he asks, leaning over to flip through the records. Joy Division definitely isn’t the right mood. He’s about to offer a few suggestions when he hears her take another picture. “Seriously, Nance?”

“What?” she laughs. “I need pictures of your butt too. I like your butt. I don’t want to forget it.”

He rolls his eyes and grabs a mixtape, not even caring anymore. Shoves it in the stereo, turns off the record player, and hits play.

“Gimme that,” he reaches for the Polaroid but she holds it up above her head. He advances on her, cornering her against the chair in the corner and gently plucking it from her grip. “I’m taller than you.”

“Show off,” she grumps, but it’s not serious, her eyes are sparkling and her lips are curved. He kisses her before she can say anything else, setting the camera on his desk.

It’s a well-practiced dance, his fingers popping the button on her jeans and hers pulling his t-shirt up and over his head. The slow spins from chair to dresser to bed, a short trail of clothing left in their wake. He pins her beneath him, her calves on his lower back and his hands on her wrists.

He’s fumbling with one hand to turn off his bedside lamp while she takes advantage of her freed hand to reach between them and do something _very_ nice when the knock comes on his door. They freeze. He is painfully glad he remembered to lock it.

“Jonathan?” his mother calls. The doorknob rattles.

“Hold on, I’m changing!” he calls, scrambling off her and reaching for his boxers. His bed squeaks as Nancy scrambles under the covers.

“Just turn your stereo down, okay? I can hear it in Will’s room.”

“Sorry, I will,” he pulls the door open, not even bothering with a shirt, blocking the small gap with his body. “I think I’m gonna go to bed, anyway.”

His mom’s eyes are dancing; she looks like she’s holding back a laugh. “Okay,” she says, uses her thumb to wipe at the corner of his mouth then shows it to him. There’s a smear of magenta there. “Keep it down, alright?”

He’s got nothing to say to that, just closes the door with a tight “goodnight.” Nancy stares at him from the bed, eyes as wide as saucers, knuckle between her teeth.

“That fucking lipstick,” he snips, returning to the side of the bed and snaps the light off. Nancy bites down a little harder trying not to laugh. “Every time!”

That’s enough to break her, to set her giggling. He sits on the edge of his side of the bed, turning the volume down, and she drapes herself across his back, nuzzling his neck and the angle of his jaw with the tip of her nose.

“Don’t be mad,” she implores, dropping a kiss under his ear. He tries to harrumph her off, but she pulls on him until he’s lying on his back and she can straddle his waist. He looks up at her, silhouetted against his window and the dim moonlight, and wishes he could see her more clearly.

“I’m sorry.” She doesn’t sound sincere, not the way she’s grinning at him, hands braced on either side of his head. Presses a smacking kiss to his nose, his forehead, both of his cheeks, leaving prints behind. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” after each one.

“Ugh, _stoooop_,” he bats her away but it’s as disingenuous as it gets, especially when he’s tilting his head this way and that to make a little more room. Tries a few times to catch her lips with his own and only gets a few more lipstick smudges in the corners of his mouth for his trouble.

Then she pulls away and sits up, looking contemplatively down at him. He stays still, blood thrumming to get back to fooling around but curious what she has up her sleeve. Tucks his hands behind his head and waits, pretty sure he knows what she’s about to go for.

She reaches behind her, snags the strap of the Polaroid, and he knows he was right.

He doesn’t fight it this time. Instead he makes himself comfortable and lets the soft smile spread across his face as she turns on the flash and takes his picture.

He has a feeling that one will turn out.

  
+++

She whispers to him when she thinks he's sleeping. Or maybe she doesn't think that at all and instead simply takes comfort in the blanket of darkness that hides how difficult this is for her.

"I'll pay for a phone line, one that's just for us. So that I can still call you in the middle of the night, when it's too hard. So I can tell you how much I miss you. So I can hear your voice and go back to sleep."

He stays still on his stomach, letting her talk. He doesn't think she can see that his eyes are open. Her fingertips walk lightly down his spine, stopping in each notch. It's soft enough to almost lull him back to sleep.

"I'll steal the car. I mean, I'll leave a note so my parents won't call the cops, but I'll steal the car and I'll follow you. Stay for the weekend. We can trade weekends. If we leave right after school Friday, I'm sure we'll make it in time for two whole days."

She tucks her face into the back of his shoulder, first her lips then her teeth grazing the ridge of bone there.

"I'll clear out the bottom of my closet, make you a bed in there. As long as you're quiet no one will even know you're there. You can stay for as long as you want."

His heart wrenches; he almost replies. He's stopped by the feeling of a tear dripping from her cheek onto his back.

"I guess you got out of taking me to prom."

She chokes out a sound, not quite a laugh and not quite a sob, and he can't stay still anymore. It only takes the smallest movement to lift his arm and draw her to him, her knee sliding over his hip and his palm guiding her face to his. He can taste the salt from her tears, dripping down her cheeks.

"I'd love to take you to prom," is all he can offer. He doesn't have the words to say the rest of what he means.

"Liar," her voice is thick. "You hate prom."

"But I love you."

"Maybe we can go to each other's prom, if they're not the same weekend."

"I'd attend two proms for you, Nancy Wheeler."

She sighs and tucks her face back into his neck. He's not quite on his side and she slides so he's laying more on top of her than on the mattress. He buries his hand in her hair and holds her close.

"You'd look handsome in a tux."

"I'd look like a penguin."

"A cute penguin."

"See? Already a step down, from handsome to cute."

"I'd say a sexy penguin but that just sounds weird."

He laughs and she looks up at him again. He can barely see her, just the shine of her eyes, but he brushes her curls out of her face anyway.

"I hate this," she admits. "I feel like I'm falling apart all the time."

"Me too."

"I don't like feeling weak."

"You're not weak." He thinks about his father, all the things he did to ‘toughen him up,’ the walls it built, the people it kept him away from. "Feeling something doesn't make you weak."

"I don't feel something, I feel weak. I feel like the second you drive off I'm going to fall apart and I'll never put myself back together again."

"You've gotta be kidding me."

He still can't see her face but by the way she pulls back he can imagine the supremely insulted expression pretty well.

"_Excuse_ me? Since when do you tell me how I fe--"

He cuts her off with a kiss, brief and hard.

"You don't fall apart. I watched you literally find out your best friend had died and after you had yourself a cry the next thing you wanted to do was kill a monster. And then you almost did! You're not going to fall apart just because I'm a hundred-odd miles away."

"I'm not made of stone, Jonathan. I need you."

"No, you don't," he hopes she can see how fond his smile is. "I know what you mean, but you don't. And anyway, I'll still be here. Not _here_, here, but I'm not dead and I'm certainly not breaking up with you. You're stuck with me, for as long as you'll have me. Which I was sort of hoping would be forever."

"Forever sounds good," she agrees quickly, burying her face in his neck again. He squeezes her close, letting her take whatever comfort she needs. Savors the feel of her squeezing him back.

"You weren't supposed to hear any of that, you know," she mutters a moment later and he grins into her hair. "You were supposed to be asleep."

"I was, for some of it." He tries to look over at his clock but he can't, not in this position. Still, he's reluctant to dislodge her. "How long have you been awake?"

"I dunno."

"Well, it's..." He has to move then, lets her go and rolls over, away from her, so he can look at the clock. It screams 4:16 back at him, the red light even ruder in the last moments before dawn. "...two hours before the alarm. Think you can fall back asleep?"

"I dunno," she says again, waiting for him to settle on his back to slide up to him again. They fit themselves together and even though he knows his arm will fall asleep like this, he really doesn't care.

He closes his eyes, but the silence seems too loud now. So, he speaks softly, voice low and rough.

"I've thought about graduating early."

"Oh?"

"I could move back here. Get a job, an apartment. I have some savings. It'd probably be pretty small, but we don't need that much room."

"No," she agrees. "We don't need much space at all."

"One bedroom, maybe, or a studio. You could finish your senior year, we could decide what we want to do for college."

"New York still?"

"Or Chicago. Maybe even California."

She yawns against his chest. "Really? California?"

"Sure, why not? As long as you're there, I'd go anywhere."

"Indianapolis?"

"Ugh, seriously?"

She laughs and he can feel her eyelashes flutter against his skin.

"You said anywhere."

"And I meant it."

"Will you make me breakfast? When we have our own apartment?"

"Of course," he lets his own eyes slip shut. "Every morning, if you want."

“I’ll make dinner.”

He grins. “You’re a terrible cook.”

“I’ll learn. While you’re gone, I’ll learn. You’ll see. Mom will teach me all her tricks, you’ll be so impressed.”

“I’m always impressed, Nancy Wheeler.”

They whisper to each other in the dark, and drift off just as the first pink rays of dawn break over the horizon.

+++

“Is this you?”

Jonathan sets the box of cookbooks down at the edge of the kitchen and follows Nancy’s voice out to the living room. The hall is lined with boxes now, as is the living room and the corners of the kitchen. He feels like they’re growing when they’re out of sight; every time he comes home from school there are more.

His room is the only one that’s remained untouched; he won’t let his mother go near it. He knows he’s in denial but he doesn’t care. Every time he even reaches for an item to pack up his stomach lurches and the world tilts.

And Nancy’s been perfectly content to let him keep avoiding it, so despite his mother’s gentle nagging nothing has gotten done.

His mother and Nancy are sitting together now on the sofa, the contents of the built-in spread out before them. It’s mostly photo albums and folders of his prints and he winces as he catches a glimpse of the picture Nancy is holding. It is definitely him; of him and Will, only he was blonde as a baby. And he is definitely in a bathtub, and _definitely _naked.

He tries to snatch it from her over the back of the couch, but she jerks it out of reach too quickly.

“So it _is_ you."

“Oh it’s definitely him,” his mother laughs, holding out two more photos for Nancy to look at. He can tell they were taken soon after the first; in one he’s standing in the middle of the bathroom with a towel draped over his head, face screwed up in consternation, in the other it’s just a shot of his back and his extremely bare bottom, tearing down the hallway into the living room.

Nancy laughs, holding the pictures close to her face, as if that will give her a better view. He groans, tries to swipe them again, but she twists away. “Cut that out.”

“This is _embarrassing_.”

“It’s _adorable_,” Nancy counters.

“He _hated_ taking baths when he was a toddler, always ran around like a maniac afterward,” his mom chimes in, grinning until her eyes turn slightly contemplative. “Kinda like Chester, actually.”

“Chester your _dog_?” Nancy asks as he yelps an offended, “Hey!”

“_Wow_, Mom,” he shakes his head, grabbing for the photos and succeeding this time, pulling them out of Nancy’s grip. “I’m gonna throw these away—”

“Absolutely not,” his mom grabs his wrist, taking the photos from him. “Don’t you dare touch the family photos.”

“Yeah, lighten up,” Will says, rounding the corner into the room. “But, like, what photos are we looking at?”

“Nothing,” he answers at the same time his mom says, “Your brother,” and Nancy replies “Naked baby Jonathan.”

Will’s eyes light up. “Ooh, let me see.”

His mom hands them over and he throws his hands in the air, giving up. Tucks himself on the sofa behind Nancy and rests his chin on her shoulder, joining them to flip through the photo album.

The album is filled with shots of him and Will as babies, his parents often appearing only as the occasional shoulder or back. Probably, he thinks, because his mom was usually taking the picture and Lonnie was off doing whatever he deemed more worthy of his time than his family. Still, it’s surprising to see his dad sitting next to him, smiling, with the remnants of a birthday cake smeared all over his face and his high chair tray, or holding Will in the hospital with his young self looking curiously at the baby over his father’s elbow. Lonnie looks happy in those pictures, like a father should. Jonathan wonders what life would have been like if it hadn’t gone all wrong.

And it does go wrong; in the background of photos centered on Will’s first fingerpainting adventures there are beer bottles strewn on the side tables. Family photos at the holiday dinner table start to look more tense; he, in particular, looks more sullen. It hurts, a little bit.

“Cute,” Nancy murmurs, resting a fingertip next to a picture of him dressed up as Robin Hood for Halloween, probably from about first grade. “You _used_ to dress up for Halloween.”

“He used to go through half a dozen costume ideas every October,” his mom laughs, shaking her head. “I couldn’t start on anything until just a couple days before because he’d change his mind so much. At least until you were about 10. Then you sort of lost your taste for it. I wonder why.”

Nancy stiffens against his chest and he wonders if she’s thinking about what he told her, years ago now, about his father and his tenth birthday and the first time he ever had to kill a living creature. He’s killed more than a rabbit now. And he hasn’t cried about it.

“Grew up, I guess,” he offers. His mom looks like she knows better but she doesn’t say anything, just pulls the album to her and closes it decisively.

“You did. And as a mature, responsible young man, will you _please_ start packing up your room?”

He huffs, straightens, is about to launch into yet another explanation about how he really doesn’t have that much stuff and they’ve got a couple weeks left still before the move anyway and it’ll be _fine_, when Nancy stands up and offers her hand to him.

“Sure, Mrs. Byers,” she answers for him, grabbing his elbow when he doesn’t take her hand. “We can start on that.”

He follows her, grumbling and glaring, shutting the door behind them. She’s stopped just at the side of his bed, looking around thoughtfully, and an idea occurs to him. He slides up behind her, winding his arms around her waist and dotting kisses down the side of her neck.

“Privacy,” he murmurs. “Smart.”

“Stop that,” she admonishes, but she doesn’t move, at least not immediately. He’s working his way back up to the underside of her ear when she turns in his arms, slides her hands up and around his neck. He doesn’t hesitate to kiss her deeply.

He’s working his way up to a really good make out session – he can tell by the way his blood starts thrumming and how Nancy’s hips press into his – when she takes his face in her hands and pushes him back slightly.

“Jonathan,” she says against his mouth, and he chases her lips, eyes still shut. “Come on, we should pack a little.”

“No,” he manages to get close enough to nip at her lower lip. “It’s fine, it won’t take that long. We can do it later. Next week.”

“_Jonathan_,” she pulls back further and he has to open his eyes then, if just to glare at her. “It’s stressing your mom out and she’s got enough on her plate right now.”

That’s not what he’s expecting; his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. She looks away, slightly embarrassed.

“We talked,” she admits softly, “while you were working on the kitchen. I didn’t realize… I didn’t mean to make it worse for her. I guess Will’s been pretty difficult, too.”

He thinks about that. About arguments he’s heard through two closed doors. He supposes they’ve both been rather stubborn.

“I think I’ve been unfair to her,” Nancy says quietly, and he releases her, lets her take a step back from him. “I didn’t mean to be.”

“I don’t think you’ve been unfair.” He thinks she’s been rather kind, actually, considering what’s about to happen to them.

“Maybe not out loud, but… She loves you, a lot, and I love you, a lot, and so I’m just going to try to be helpful, okay?” She looks up at him, eyes shining. “Let me be helpful?”

He almost laughs at her question; as if he’s ever really been able to say no to her. “Yeah. Okay. Fine. I will let you be helpful.”

She gives him a tight smile, a determined nod, and then to his surprise immediately steps onto his bed and goes for the tapestry hanging there.

“Hey!” he yelps and she stops. “No no no no no, leave that up.”

He can’t bear the idea of bare walls, not just yet. That’s too much, too intense, too real.

“Well, we have to start somewhere.”

He looks around the room desperately, casting about for something that will feel productive but not bother him too much. Not force him to think about just how far away he’s going to be. His eyes land on his desk, strewn with photos and notebooks and film canisters, tapes and books. He’s not using it for homework anyway.

“We can do my desk, okay? I’ll go get a box.” He moves to open the door but waits until she climbs off his bed to actually leave.

His mother catches him in the hallway as he returns, cardboard box in hand.

“Thank you,” she says gently, and lets him continue.

He’s only been gone a minute but Nancy has already started stacking his photos in a neat pile, moved the tapes to the side for him to start organizing. A lump appears in his throat, sharp and painful, as he realizes just how quickly this is going to go. He could probably grab his girlfriend, toss her in the bed and distract her for another hour, if she lets him, but even after that she’ll pull on one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers and get his desk packed in half an hour or less.

No matter what he does, this is going to happen. It’s going to be real.

So he stands by her side, telling her stories as they carefully fit the items into the box, giving her mixtapes he no longer needs, showing her photos he thought he’d always keep hidden. When it’s too much and his voice catches, breaks, she squeezes his hand, and together they start to pack up the only life he’s ever known.

+++

On the last night, they are all there. Nancy and all of El and Will’s friends, they arrive by car and by bike, sleeping bags slung over their shoulders and more enthusiasm than he thinks anyone has a right to have.

They order pizza. They empty their dressers into boxes, and Nancy helps him take the posters and photos off his walls. They play cards and eat the last of the ice cream in the freezer with plastic spoons, until his mother tells them she’s going to bed and they should too; they have a long, hard day ahead of them tomorrow.

That dampens the mood, a little; he finds he’s lost his appetite. When the kids start unrolling their gear to set up camp in the living room, arguing over which of the movies they brought to watch, he takes Nancy’s hand and leads her away, to his room.

The click of the door closing behind them echoes off the bare walls. Most things are in boxes except for his stereo and records. It makes him feel slightly sick. When Nancy turns to him, her eyes are shining with tears.

“Last record,” she offers, voice wavering as she gestures to it. “Wanna do the honors?”

For a second he’s hit with the strongest urge to drop to one knee, ask her to marry him. It’s insanity; they are 17 and he doesn’t want to get married now, maybe not ever, and knows she feels the same. But he’s struck with the crazed desire to know she will be his forever, that nothing – not miles, not monsters, not alternate dimensions or new high schools with new people – will ever tear them apart. Wants her to promise him, to make a legal commitment, to write it in stone. It’s their last night together for who knows how long, and he wants the strongest reassurance he knows.

He swallows that urge, shakes his head at her instead.

“First record,” he corrects. “I’m not ready to sleep yet. We’ve got hours. You pick.”

She tries to grin, but it’s wobbly, and a tear spills over when her cheek moves. In just a handful of steps he’s by her side and she’s in her arms, her fingertips digging into his ribs as she clutches him close.

They pull out a handful of records, slide Elvis Costello onto the turntable, and turn off the lights. And though every cell in his body is screaming for her, he takes his time. Kisses every inch of skin as he exposes it, removing each item of clothing one by one. He nuzzles the undersides of her breasts, ghosts his mouth along her ribs, dips his tongue into her navel. Kisses her hipbones and the insides of her thighs, the ticklish spots behind her knees, even the tops of her feet.

She giggles, and sighs, and lets out a choked sob from time to time, and when he climbs over her again her cheeks are wet with tears.

When she reaches for him with the same kind of care he lays back on the mattress and gives her the time, the space, to do the same to him. Closes his eyes and tries to memorize the way her lips feel, the times they are soft and the times they are hard, when her tongue is cool and when it is hot, what her teeth feel like when they scrape against his skin and send tingles down his spine. And the tears escape him as well, wetting his cheeks and dripping down his neck; there is nothing he can do to stop them.

She kisses both his ankles and moves back up his body, straddling his hips and trapping the evidence of his desire between them. Her hands dent the pillow on either side of his head and he opens his eyes to find her face close to his, so close their noses almost touch, so close just a tilt of his head would bring them together in a kiss. The sheet that doubled as a curtain has been stripped from his window and the moonlight makes her curly hair glow like a halo, turning the girl he loves into the image of a goddess, and to his surprise he feels a deep and powerful joy bubble up from the pit of his stomach and burst out of him in a loud, real laugh.

And if he ever needed proof that she was, in fact, the other half of him, the puzzle piece that completes his soul, his partner in every way and the love of his life, he gets it when her face stretches into a wide smile and she laughs, too, clear and jubilant and free.

“I love you, Nancy Wheeler,” he tells her, holding her cheek and drawing her down for a kiss.

“I love you, Jonathan Byers,” she replies against his mouth and lets him roll them.

They can’t keep still, rolling and moving and changing positions over and over again. He wants to have her every way and knows he will – the night is still young – but he feels restless and needy. Finally she traps him beneath her, hands on his wrists and knees tight around his hips to keep him still. When she’s confident he’ll obey she releases him, sits up fully and moves, serpentine, on him, making his eyes roll back in his head from the pleasure.

When he opens them again she is glowing in the moonlight, the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He reaches out, fumbling, and finds his camera on the nightstand right where he left it. Raises it to his eye with shaking hands.

She looks down at him steadily, never breaking eye contact, soft smile never wavering. Her expression is mature far beyond her years, the confident face of a woman not a girl.

She doesn’t stop moving but she does slow, throws her hair over her shoulder, leans back just a touch so the moonlight can break over her shoulder. And she lets him take her picture.

+++

In the morning they dress slowly. He watches Nancy carefully style her hair into place, pull on her sweater and jeans, apply her makeup, stuff her clothes from the day before into her overnight bag. He breathes carefully under the weight of the knowledge that this is the last time he will see any of these things in this room, and in any room for a long time.

He takes a moment to stand behind her, wrap his arms tightly across her chest and bury his nose in her hair. To breathe her in with closed eyes and commit to memory how warm and solid and real she is.

“Okay,” he says into her curls on a heavy exhale. “Let’s do this.”

It is cruel in its quickness.

It takes only a few hours for most of the house to make it into the U-Haul. He swears there was more to their life in Hawkins than this; it feels like there should be enough furniture and baggage, figurative and literal, to keep them loading the truck for days. But in reality the sofa and the table and the easy chair and the dining set take only a few minutes each thanks to all the helping hands, and the steady stream of cardboard boxes marches out thanks to the Party, as efficient as a colony of ants.

Before he knows it, while the sun is still far too high in the sky, he is standing in his bedroom, staring at the empty space with something between awe and horror.

The feeling of Nancy sliding her arms around his waist, the press of her lips to his shoulder blade through his t-shirt, cracks something inside him.

“What if I just don’t let you go?” she wonders and the crack widens. He swallows against the lump in his throat, carefully untangles her arms and brings her around to face him.

“I think the new owners would probably kick us out.” He tries to joke. He tries to keep it light. He braids their fingers together and makes sure she doesn’t lean too far away.

“You could stay in our basement,” she offers, not for the first time. It draws a grin to the corners of his lips.

“Yeah, your dad would love that.”

“We could hide you in a tent,” the softness her in voice slips the crack further until it is a gaping maw, “like El.”

It’s almost enough to break him. He wants to agree, scream yes, to run away with her instead, make a home, and never be apart again. He knows he can’t. He tips his forehead against hers, turns her left hand up to expose her scar. Runs his thumb across it.

They made a pledge to each other that night. Maybe they didn’t know they were doing it at the time, but they did it nonetheless; a blood oath tying them together forever. For better or worse, no one can ever know them the way they know each other. No one else can ever understand.

He almost can’t speak around the lump in his throat, but he can feel the pain radiating from her and he knows he has to say something. He searches for the right words to make her understand that this isn’t an ending, that there _can’t_ be an ending it is and always will be her, for him.

“A wise man once said,” he starts, lets the words tumble out and just hopes they make sense, “we have shared trauma.”

Her hand is trembling, and so are her lips, and his throat hurts and maybe he’s not saying this right, he’s not sure if he’s saying this right.

But she speaks, answers his unasked question. “So what’s a little more, right?”

And he thinks perhaps she understands. Not just how much he loves her, but the promise he is making her, right now. More than a promise. A vow.

He looks at her, faces still so close together and even though he can barely hold back to the tears, he can’t help but smile.

“So what’s a little more,” he repeats, and draws her lips to his before they can say anything else.

They cling to each other in the empty room, breathing each other in, until the storm inside of him settles into something more manageable. When they finally separate Nancy carefully wipes away her tears and then his.

“I’m sick of crying,” she admits and he can’t help but agree. “Let’s go outside.”

There are a couple more boxes waiting on the front porch so he takes them, hops up into the U-Haul and arranges a few things in less precarious positions. Nancy leans on the arm of the sofa in the truck, staring at nothing. He’d ask if she’s okay but it’s a stupid, redundant question. None of them are.

But when El comes out and hands him a box, declaring “This is the last one,” she suddenly straightens and lets out an “Oh!”

“What?” he asks, settling the box amongst others.

“I have something for you,” she says and runs over to the Wheelers’ station wagon. He hops down from the truck, shuts the back behind him, and is following when she skids over to his car.

“Do you have a pen?” she asks, not even waiting for a reply before she throws the back seat open and starts digging through his blue bag. It doesn’t have much in it, just his camera and more precious photos and, for whatever insane reason, his schoolwork and notebooks for a senior year he’s never going to complete but wouldn’t throw away, but it does have a few of the markers he uses for his contact sheets. She holds one aloft with a triumphant cry.

“What do you have?” he asks, coming up behind her. She shuts the door and spreads something out on the trunk, blocking it with her body. He has to shuffle close to see over her shoulder. He doesn’t mind.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s definitely not a calendar. 

Nancy leans over it, already open to October, and writes in her neatest, most careful print.

“This is my address,” she explains. He bites back a smile.

“I know your address.”

“And this is my phone number.”

The smile breaks free. “I know your phone number.”

“And this,” she says, circling each date carefully in near perfect circles, “is when you should call me.”

He cracks up at that, watching her circle every date for two weeks.

“Every night, Nance,” he takes the marker gently out of her hand, “I promise I’ll call you every night.”

“After those two weeks, too?”

“You know, you can call me too.”

“I don’t know your new phone number, but once you tell it to me, I will,” she looks at him seriously, “all the time.”

She flips the calendar to its next page and he’s surprised to find there’s writing in November, too. “I put in all my breaks; Thanksgiving, winter break, everything a 1985 calendar can show. I’ll give you a new one for Christmas, with all of next year. And my mom, she already said we can come for Thanksgiving, if your mom will let us. Or,” she gives a thoughtful frown, “you know, we could just show up and I don’t care what your mom says, I don’t see any reason we have to leave your room at all.”

She raises her eyebrow at him and fucking hell, he loves her.

“Sounds good to me.”

“And then once we graduate we can get a new one and fill it out together.”

He smiles and takes the calendar from her, tucking them both carefully into his blue bag, like the precious item it is. “Yes.”

“Good,” she nods at him, taking his hand when he closes the door and holding it tight. “Good.”

There is a final round of hugs – Nancy and his mom, El and Will and every member of the party, him and Nancy, hands on her cheeks, in her hair. They give their final reassurances – _we can do this _and_ it’ll be okay _and _I love you_. The only word they refuse to utter is _goodbye_.

Will sobs as he turns the ignition and follows his mother down the driveway. In his rearview mirror he sees Lucas and Max, Dustin and Mike, and Nancy, stiff and pensive, watching them go. He should be paying attention to the road but he can’t, not when she’s still in view, not when she’s still this close to him, as close as she will be for days and weeks, even as he moves farther and farther away. So he looks in the mirror, at her face, and wills himself to remember.

And just before they reach the end of the driveway, just before the line breaks and they all go their separate ways, he sees her smile. It is small, it is flickering, but it is there.

And he knows: they’ll survive this too.

**Author's Note:**

> Paper tiger (n): "Paper tiger" is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhilaohu (纸老虎／紙老虎). The term refers to something or someone that claims or appears to be powerful and/or threatening, but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge.
> 
> Title also taken from the song of the same name by Spoon. "Kill The Moonlight" is the best album and full of Jancy feelings. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience. There are a lot of feelings in this fic, and a lot of feelings that had to be worked through to get it out. I hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> (p.s. the paper tiger is distance)


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